Tehran drops all charges against jailed British-Iranian woman

All charges have been dropped against Ghoncheh Ghavami, a British-Iranian woman who was jailed following her arrest for allegedly protesting outside a volleyball match in Tehran, according to campaigners for her freedom.

Ghavami, 26, was jailed
in June 2014 after trying to attend a men’s volleyball game in
the capital. It is not illegal for women to attend games, but
authorities effectively banned it in 2012.

Initially she was released, but was re-arrested when she came to
the police station to collect her belongings.

The prosecutor’s office in Tehran has now agreed to close her
case, and drop the charges of “propaganda activities against
the regime” and “contacts with opposition forces”
under which she was held, the Campaign for the Defence of Civil
and Political Prisoners said.

They added Ghavami has agreed to pay a fine of 10 million tomans
(£2,000/US$2,985)).

However she is currently subject to a two-year ban on leaving
Iran, which means she was unable to return to Britain to
celebrate Iranian New Year over the weekend.

While the Iranian authorities never publicly confirmed her charge
or sentence, Ghavami’s mother, Susan Moshtaghian, said she had
been sentenced to a year in jail.

Authorities only confirmed they were investigating her supposed
links to political opposition figures.

She was released in November on a bail of roughly £20,000 after
spending five months in jail. She has since been living with her
parents in Tehran.

During her detention, a campaign group gathered worldwide support
on social media, with an online petition attracting more than
700,000 signatures. The hashtag #freeGhoncheh was shared widely.

During the final weeks of her detention, Ghoncheh was on hunger
strike in protest against the void of information surrounding her
prosecution.

Upon hearing news of the hunger strike, her mother spoke out in
solidarity.

“[Ghavami] said that she’s fed up with this 100-day
uncertainty. It's been a while that she has no more
interrogations but her detention has not ended. That she's been
banned from visits for no reason for 19 days,” she said in
October last year.